1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a fan frame in which a fan for blowing air or cooling is accommodated.
2. Description of Related Arts
In the prior art, there has been widely adopted a configuration in which a fan frame in which a fan with a plurality of blades is accommodated is attached to a supporting member provided in a personal computer, and the fan is rotated to dissipate heat generated from a heat generator like CPU (Central Processing Unit). The fan frame includes, for example, a housing having an opening, a motor base located in the housing, and a plurality of ribs supporting the motor base between a peripheral edge of the opening and the motor base (see, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-017117).
A fan frame is attached to a supporting member on the personal computer side with a tapping screw. At this time, if a hole of the fan frame is damaged when the tapping screw is inserted through the hole, the fan frame is not satisfactorily fixed to the supporting member, and this causes vibration and noise. If the hole of the fan frame is deteriorated over the ages while being partially damaged in the attachment of the tapping screw and the hole is fractured, this causes dropping-out of the fan frame from the supporting member. However, in a conventional fan frame, there has been no configuration in which the hole into which the tapping screw is fixed is prevented from being damaged by the tapping screw.
That is, in the conventional fan frame, when the tapping screw is fixed into the hole of the fan frame, cracking may occur around the hole. The tapping screw is a screw to be fixed into the hole of the fan frame molded with, for example, a resin while forming a screw groove in an inner circumferential surface of the hole. In the conventional fan frame, the hole has a straight shape, and an entrance portion of the hole through which the tapping screw is inserted is formed into a right angle, and thus a very large load is applied to the entrance portion of the hole.
Especially, when the tapping screw inclining in the axial direction of the hole of the conventional fan frame is fixed into the hole, an excessive load is applied to the entrance portion of the hole, and cracking or the like is often formed around the hole. Manufacturing errors may occur in the diameter of the hole of the fan frame, and the tapping screw to be fixed into the hole has various specifications. Accordingly, even if the tapping screw is fixed into the hole of the conventional fan frame to be vertical in the axis direction of the hole, an excessive load is applied to the entrance portion of the hole, whereby cracking and so on may occur.
Thus, in the conventional fan frame, the insertion of the tapping screw into the hole of the fan frame is required to be visually confirmed at one place thereof to prevent the inclination of the tapping screw. Since the tapping screw is vertically inserted into the hole of the fan frame, a jig which corrects the inclination of the tapping screw is required to be used. Accordingly, there has been a problem that a process for assembling the fan frame becomes complex.